T.F.M. Spotting - Bart On The Raritan

Bart Lombardo, a.k.a. "The Jersey Angler", recently sent along a T.F.M. Spotting photo for the contest along with a report of his day on the Raritan River.  I can't help but think that the T.F.M. t-shirt paired with the Hardy glass rod created some sort of stellar fly fishing mojo.

I consider The South Branch of the Raritan River my home waters.  My favorite portion of the river is in the area of the Ken Lockwood Gorge section.  Ken Lockwood Gorge is a "Trout Conservation" area which requires fishing with artificial lures or flies only and a one fish limit of fifteen inches or better.

I started the day with the intention of doing a little Czech nymphing. I was fishing a 10' 4wt graphite rod, sacrilegious yes, but I have yet to find a 10' glass rod in a four or five weight.  On my third or fourth cast I hooked up with a nice brown in the twenty inch range. The fish took a soft hackle that was riding high on my three fly rig.

After releasing that fish i started noticing a lot of moving, feeding fish so I decided to change tactics and toss some wet flies around.  I hiked back to the car and rigged up my eight foot five weight Hardy "Trout Fisher" with a brace of Hare's Ear Soft Hackles.  It turned out to be a very productive day.  Fish after fish smashed the flies as they drifted down and across.  This rainbow was the first fish taken on the swung flies with many more to follow.

The fish varied in size, some large some small, but they all wanted the same thing a size 14 Hare's Ear Soft Hackle.

I never identified what they were actually feeding on because it didn't matter.  They were eating the flies and swinging wet flies on a glass rod is one of my favorite ways to fish.  

Big fish rose up out of their hiding places and smashed the flies.  I'm sure the forgiving nature of the  fiberglass rod saved many tippets that would have other wise been snapped on the take.

The brown trout dominated the day although I managed to catch one small brook trout and a few rainbows in the faster pocket water.

 Some of the rainbows were quite large.  It doesn't get any better than when a twenty inch rainbow darts out from behind a mid stream boulder and grabs a swung wet fly.

As the afternoon wore on a spinner fall came and the fish started looking up.  As the light faded more and more fish broke the surface sipping fallen spinners.  Turing around and facing upstream I cast the soft hackles treated with a little floatant and continued to take fish.

The last fish if the day was a rainbow as long as my leg.   As I chased this one down stream my wading staff became entangled in my legs and I face planted in the water.  After the "River Runs Through It" moment I got back on my feet regained my composure and brought this one to hand.  Soaking wet but sublimely happy I called it a night.

Bart writes a great blog, The Jersey Angler, which regularly touches on tenkara fishing, trip reports on both coldwater and warmater, and some excellent fly tying as well.